It went bang
by Gumnut
Summary: It went bang. INCOMPLETE
1. It went bang

It went bang  
A scribble for the word 'bubble'  
By Gumnut  
14 Jun 2006

"We are losing integrity."

"Damnit, Scotty, we need more power!"

"I'm givin' ye all we've got, Captain. Would ye like me to get out and push?"

Kirk swore, more for the sudden shift to starboard and the corresponding whack to his elbow than the sarcasm of his chief engineer. "Do your best, Mr Scott."

He ignored the muttered 'As if I'd give anything else' and closed the connection. Turning his attention to his science officer, he uttered the required mantra. "How much longer do we have?"

Face buried in the hood of his viewer, Spock answered in the same irritatingly calm tone he had answered before. "Fifteen point two three seconds, sir."

He held back the urge to swear again, they didn't have the time. The ship shuddered once more and Uhura, who had been assisting Spock stumbled enough for the Vulcan to reach out and grab her arm. "Ten seconds."

"We're going to make it." They had to. The wave of exploding sun behind them couldn't be the death of his ship.

Of all the stars the Enterprise had to be surveying, it had to be one that had been 'enhanced'. That had been Spock's term for what had been done to the thing. A simple survey of uncharted space. Nothing unusual. Facing the unknown was an everyday occurrence aboard this ship. The unknown just didn't usually blow up in their faces.

Well, not usually. There had been that time when…oh, and the incident with the Yrui…and the Frennie cluster…and last week…had that only been last week? Hmm. Okay, so it did blow up occasionally. Just not like this.

Spock had theorised, in the two point five seconds he'd had to survey the star before it novaed all over the place, that its core state had been altered. How that was possible he had no idea, but he had no doubt Spock would get several scientific papers out of it and be muttering about it for weeks…once they made it out alive.

Because whatever had been done, had not only altered the star's existence in real space, but also its state in subspace. The nova, once triggered, had expanded into subspace…which included warp space. So an explosion and disruption that could normally be outrun by a simple application of any degree of warp speed, now required every watt of power they had to keep ahead of it.

He prayed they were far out enough for the explosion to avoid other shipping, Federation or no.

"Five seconds. Our speed is insufficient, Captain."

"We're going to make it."

But the words were taken from him as a claw of energy wrapped around the ship's warp bubble and crumpled it.

The bridge lights failed. For a moment there was absolute silence, the only light, the fading impressions of console switches.

And then Kirk's world simply exploded.

-o-o-o-

TBC?


	2. Moon

Moon  
Sequel to It went bang  
By Gumnut  
23 Jul 2006

Moon.

The single word applied itself to his mind.

It was a moon.

And it was moving. Drifting, circling in circles ever so lazily. Kirk smiled. It was pretty. It glittered gold. Was there a sun? Sun and moon. A pair. Somewhere he smiled.

Drifting lazily. Round and round.

He used to gaze at the moon on Earth when he was a kid. Nothing like an Iowa field on a clear night. Stars and moon. Partners, pairs, no sun. No, there was no sun where there was a moon.

No sun.

He frowned.

Lazy circles.

Spock liked moons. He had spent an entire afternoon attempting to explain the enjoyment…totally Vulcan enjoyment, mind you…he received from calculating moon probabilities at a distance. When Kirk asked why on Earth he would want to calculate something the sensors could easily tell him at a touch of a button, Spock had laser blasted him with that eyebrow of his and returned the question with a question of his own regarding mountain climbing and its purpose. Kirk had been forced to back down and fight back a grin. Vulcan, Smulcan. Big fake.

Fake. Fate.

Dancing in lazy circles.

If there was a moon, where was the planet? He frowned again.

Lazy circles.

"M-" ister Spock?

Spock?

Where was his voice?

Where was his Vulcan?

That thought set him giggling around his head. Hand me my Vulcan please. A silly grin.

Doctor, we're losing her!

Damnit! Get me a Vulcan now!

McCoy asking for a Vulcan? Vulcan, Vulcan, I need a Vulcan, stat!

More silent giggling.

Vulcan.

Vulcan had no moon.

Spock said so. Spock always knew. Ask Spock.

No moon.

But there was moon.

Spinning in lazy circles.

"Sp-" No voice. Wh-?

_Spock?_

No answer.

Try harder.

_Spock!_

Something. He felt something. _Spock?_

_J-_

_Spock, there's a moon._

_Jim!_

_There's a moon._ He giggled at the Spock he couldn't see, only sense. _Hand me my Vulcan!_

And suddenly there was sound. Sound! He flinched. Someone was moving nearby. Nearby.

The moon danced in circles.

Where was he?

_Jim?_ "Captain?"

What was wrong with Spock's voice? He frowned again. Spock sounded hurt!

And it hit him. Spock! The sun!

The ship!

The moon circling in lazy circles.

He lay staring at it.

Through a gaping hole where his bridge used to be.

-o-o-o-


	3. Whispers

Whispers  
A scribble for the word 'whisper'  
By Gumnut  
Aug 2006

_Spock?_

A voice.

_Spock?_

An urgency.

He reached for it.

_J-_ Jim! Chaos. There must be order.

He cringed from himself.

_Spock, there's a moon._

A moon? He forced the matter and pain bounced around his head. He ignored it. Something was buzzing furiously. _Jim!_

_There's a moon._ Laughter that churned his stomach. _Hand me my Vulcan!_

He forced his eyes open and flinched at the bright dance of gold that nearly blinded him. Gold on black.

Black.

The black of open space.

He froze.

Above him an expanse of shimmering emergency force field arched up to meet with a jagged edge of bridge bulkhead. It was buzzing furiously.

Ever so carefully, he shifted his position, pulling his head away from the field. There was another flare of pain. It was also ignored.

His foot hit something and there was a clatter, but the sound was the stimulus he needed to clear his mind. He sat up, slower than he would have preferred, but the result was satisfactory.

Blood ran into his eyes.

He found himself in a caricature of hell only his nightmares could create. The bridge had been destroyed. There was no other word for it. Its elegant ellipse arrangement had been torn literally in half, bulkheads folding in on themselves, crushing everything in their way. Electricity spat as torn lines attempted to feed the mechanics they were ripped from, but above all, the scene was dominated by the buzz of the emergency force field keeping them alive. It spanned the diameter of the remains, spitting and sparking, shining its gold light on the scene; black space lay beyond it, waiting for it to fail.

Escaping air whispered its dire warning.

Spock struggled to his feet. Time was limited. Uhura lay crumpled under the remains of the science station. The briefest of assessments found her alive, but unconscious. He turned to look for the captain, almost afraid of what he would find.

Mr Scott's engineering console was jutting into the space where the command chair had been…_Jim?_ "Captain?" The spark was there. The captain was alive, but…

A gurgle and a wave of fear. _Spock? I don't feel so good._

The Vulcan clambered over the navigation console, now embedded in between his station and communications. "Jim?"

Flickering yellow light sparkled on a tuft of sandy hair. "Captain?"

"I-" Another gurgle. _Spock? The ship?!_

He found Jim Kirk pinned under the remains of his command chair, jammed up against the steps between levels. Its console was pushing on the side of his throat, the man's rasping breath little more than a long gasp.

There was blood.

"Jim. Hold still." And Spock planted his feet and levered the chair, its mounting and the sizable chunk of bridge bulkhead pinning it, off his commanding officer. Kirk groaned at the release of pressure, but didn't move from where he lay.

One leg was bent at a very unnatural angle.

Green blood suddenly blurred and obscured the scene again. Spock brushed fingers across his eyes.

"Sp-ock!" Kirk coughed and cringed, his voice still rasping. "The ship?"

Almost as if to answer her captain's query, there was a creak of tortured metal and the force field spat. Spock threw himself over Kirk, expecting the struggling field to fail and their lives to be taken with it.

It held. But the whispers of escaping air were no longer whispers.

He looked up as Kirk continued to question him incoherently, the injured man attempting to sit up and failing miserably. Spock shushed him with a soft thought, reassuring him.

_Spock?_

_Jim._ The captain fell silent.

A groan, and Ensign Chekov crawled out from under the remains of the navigation console. His eyes caught sight of his surroundings. "Bozhe-moi!"

"Mr Chekov, time is short. Are you injured?"

The answer was immediate, if wavering a little. "No, sir."

"Mr Sulu?"

Chekov blinked, and turned towards the helm. The mangled wreckage of the Lieutenant's station was cut in half by the life saving force field. There was no sign of Sulu.

The ensign moved the shattered remains of the co-ordinates display in search of his crewmate, but Spock held no hope for the young lieutenant. Circumstances were far too obvious. He ignored the resultant emotional connotations. "Mr Chekov, please assist Ms Uhura."

From the direction of the remains of his science station, a strangled alarm squawked and attempted to warn them of impending decompression, its Standard English mangled into gibberish. "Please hurry." He ignored the shock on Chekov's face and forced himself back to the task at hand.

"Yes, sir."

A quick but thorough survey of the bridge failed to produce any further survivors. Sulu remained missing, but the first officer found the remains of Lieutenant Petersen, not far from where the helmsman should have been.

The captain called out his name.

The moment Spock was within reach, Kirk grabbed at him with an uncoordinated hand. "Sp-ock, 'he ship?"

"Ascertaining its condition, sir." The phrasing was automatic. But instead of providing details, he quickly assessed Kirk's injuries in regards to moving the man as soon as possible.

The blood came from a head wound, which explained his disorientation, but apart from the broken leg and possible tracheal damage, there appeared to be no other obvious injuries.

And wishing for a tricorder he neither had nor had time to locate was illogical.

Metal creaked again and the alarm struggled to a new urgency.

"Mr Chekov, we must evacuate immediately." Leaving the captain a moment, Spock moved to the turbo lift, its doors jammed shut by buckled bulkhead. Determination saw one of the doors shoved open, Spock's fingernails scratching across the plastisteel.

Lights flickered.

The emergency bulkhead, designed to protect the shaft in case of hull breach and atmospheric loss, had shifted from its recess, ready for deployment. It would snap shut the moment decompression was detected, cutting off their access to the ladders beyond.

"Mr Spock?"

The first officer turned to find Chekov supporting a very dazed Lieutenant Uhura. Spock frowned. "Lieutenant?"

"I'm s-sorry, Mr Sp-ck." She brought a hand to her head, eyes closing in obvious pain.

"I have her, sir." Chekov kept a protective arm around her shoulders.

"Very well, evacuate the bridge, Mr Chekov."

"Yes, sir." He helped Uhura into the turbo lift shaft.

Metal groaned.

Spock hurried back to the captain.

_Spock! The moon!_ And as Spock reached down to pick up his commander, he saw it - a moon doing lazy circles on the other side of the force field.

But there was no time.

The field spat angrily.

"Captain, you must trust me." He sat the man up, draping Kirk's arms around his shoulders. "You must hang on."

_I trust you, Spock. You're my Vulcan._

As he levered Kirk to a semi-standing position, the mental touch was brought into focus. Spock was forced to ignore the pain and disorientation broadcast by the injured man. "Hang on, captain."

Something on the bridge shifted and groaned.

A deadly breeze cooled the blood on Spock's brow.

They had to move now.

The captain clinging to his side, Spock half dragged him to their escape route. Kirk cried out as his leg dangled free.

Unavoidable.

Spock's hand curled around the edge of the door.

He drew the injured man in close with one arm. _Hold tight, Jim._

The bridge groaned. Sparks crackled. The force field snarled.

Air rushed past his ears.

The emergency bulkhead engaged beneath them.

There was no more time.

With an arm full of injured captain, Spock jumped.

-o-o-o-

TBC


	4. And flickering lights

And flickering lights  
A scribble for the word 'eat'  
For slwatson & trekwriter  
Part 4 of 'It went Bang'  
By Gumnut  
2 - 11 Oct 2008

Montgomery Scott awoke in freefall. A blink and his engineering console drifted lazily past, flickering between a red darkness and normal light, eerie in an unnatural silence. Something was burning.

Fire. Power outage. Gravity failure. In order of importance. Possible causes and remedies lined up and started marching through his brain one by one before he was even fully conscious.

A body floated past.

The vision sloughed off any remaining disorientation. Burnt beyond recognition, the remains of engineering red were its only identifying trait left.

The smell of smoke teased at his nostrils.

"Watson!" Even as he called for his second-in-command, he was pivoting upon himself, altering his drift enough to reach out and grab the nearest bulkhead.

That bulkhead was hot.

"For the love of….WATSON!" A few practised moves and he was at the main engineering console. Scott had long ago supplemented the power source for the board. Its readouts were so integral to interpreting the status of the ship; it was one of his most important tools. So rigged, the console itself would have to be destroyed before it would lose power.

That power was currently feeding so many red lights, he didn't need the room lighting to read anything.

"Wa-"

"Sir! Sorry, sir. Enabling emergency procedures." She was in his face as he turned, her shock of red hair stained with a darkness most likely blood, her pale skin bloodless despite the red light staining it ruby. She clung to the console, white knuckled.

"Status?" He asked. It was procedure, but his eyes tracking the board gave him a damn tragic picture.

She clambered over to the second half of the diagnostic panel. He heard her breath hitch. "Fire in the port pylon. No readings on the port nacelle. The starboard nacelle is venting plasma."

His eyes danced across readouts. The warp core had shutdown automatically. Fortunately the safeties had kicked in, saving their lives. The fact they were now dead in the water would have to be considered later.

"Word from the bridge?" He asked the question, but knew the answer. The lack of a captain demanding answers answered that question. How long had he been unconscious?

The lights told him the story and his fingers curled into a clench. His beautiful ship was in pieces.

"No, sir."

The ship shuddered and rumbled, her superstructure echoing mortal injury. "Decompression!" And as if in answer to his exclamation the air in the room echoed a distant concussion.

His fingers flew faster across the board, accessing emergency force field control. More red lights lit up, but he was relieved to find the system fully operational. Except for… "Bloody hell!"

"Sir?" Watson's voice was up an entire octave, but she didn't stop what she was doing.

He grit his teeth. "You have Engineering, Lieutenant. Full emergency procedures. Get a team down to that pylon. Send me the damage reports. I'll be in auxillary control and co-ordinate from there." His commitments clashed, but his duty was clear.

"Should I call the bridge, sir?"

"Negative." His fingers came back slick as he wiped his forehead and his vision doubled a moment as he realised what was warm and sticky. He didn't have time. "There is no bridge."

-o-o-o-

Chekov was running on automatic. There was a reason for training and this was it. He didn't want to think.

Didn't want to think about the decompressive shudder that had nearly thrown him and Uhura down the lift shaft. Didn't want to think about how shaky the communications officer was and how much he knew she needed sickbay. Or the captain and Mr Spock above them. Didn't want to think about the bridge.

Didn't want to think about Sulu.

Now was the time for action. Reaction could occur later.

Or grief would eat him alive.

"Pavel?" Uhura's voice lacked its usual deep timbre. "I need to…I need to stop."

"Okay, okay." He gently levered her against the corridor wall. "Just for a moment." She was wilted against him and the wall was not enough support. Lowering her to the floor, he took the briefest of moments to draw in a breath.

He had thrown them through the doors on deck two, choosing to abandon the shaft that led directly to the bridge and aim for a between decks access tube for safety. It had been the correct choice. A moment after they had scrambled through, the ship had shuddered, the doors behind them had slammed shut, barely missing his boot, and his ears had popped as pressurisation fluctuated a moment.

The sizzle of yet another emergency force field was forever going to haunt his dreams, its hiss holding the lift doors shut.

The lights flickered.

He had tried the first intercom they came across but was only greeted with a static that hissed almost as loudly as the force field behind them. Fortunately, the between decks access wasn't far and they were almost there.

His eyes passed over the door to the Science Officer's Office, the letters of Mr Spock's name glued to the bulkhead beyond. His throat clenched.

Uhura slipped beside him, her head lolling onto his shoulder.

"Lieutenant?" He touched her cheek.

He shook her gently.

"Lieutenant Uhura!"

No response.

The bulkhead reflected a Russian curse as he checked her vitals.

Stumbling to his feet, he managed to throw her awkwardly across his shoulders, his boots planted on the deck. He didn't hear himself groan.

On automatic, he didn't think, he just did what needed to be done.

He didn't hear the tortured scream from beyond those lift doors so far behind him.

-o-o-o-


	5. Four whispers and a scream

Four whispers and a scream  
Part 5 of 'It went bang'  
By Gumnut  
13 – 19 Oct 2008

Whispers became screams that tore at his ears, his sensitive hearing raked by the decompressive gale. The world slammed together as both he and the emergency bulkhead collided with the shaft wall.

He struggled to get a grip on the ladder. Fingernails cracked and split.

Fingertips hooked and held.

He bit his lip through as the scream of escaping atmosphere above became a blast of sudden pain, his ear membranes shaking under the pressure change.

The lighting flickered and he could feel the tractor beam safeties designed to catch any person who fell down the turbo lift shaft flickering with them. Main power was obviously in jeopardy, the man-handling beams, designed to catch and attach accident victims to the ladder, was an unseen caress on his skin that faded in and out.

_Spock?_ The captain was reaching for the ladder.

Spock edged him closer, a muscle cracking across the first officer's back at the awkward angle. "Hold tightly, -" 'Captain' was lost under a sudden groan from the bulkhead above. His attention immediately drawn upwards, Spock's stomach dropped through his shoes.

The emergency bulkhead was trembling.

The air around them began to whisper again. His tongue tasted copper as he realised the ramifications. The mechanism must have been damaged or weakened and was unable to provide the necessary support.

The emergency bulkhead below them suddenly slid into its ready deployment position.

Time was a probability with uncertain results. A number of possible solutions to their dilemma presented themselves for assessment and all failed miserably except for one. Spock pressed his lips together.

"Captain, let go."

_Spock?_

The whispers spoke his name as the bulkhead above creaked a warning.

He could do this. He had to do this.

"Captain, let go of the rung."

_Are you kidding?_

There was no time. _Jim, I'm sorry._ Reaching in with his mind, he tripped the neurons that controlled his captain's fingers.

Kirk let go.

The bulkhead groaned as the lights finally flickered out and died completely, plunging them into an ominous darkness.

_Spock?!_

He pulled Kirk in close and, for the second time in as many minutes, Spock jumped.

-o-o-o-

Lighting was failing all over the ship, but if one person knew his way in the dark, it was her chief engineer. Limping from only one barked shin and a black eye, Scott stumbled into Auxillary Control swearing his ass off.

Gravity was off in engineering, but it was playing at twice normal strength in the corridor outside. He had collided with the field and landed on his face – which hadn't helped the roaring forties in his forehead.

"Gi'me status!" The crew on duty were accompanied by several extra crew persons, several sporting injuries. None were bridge crew. He ignored his disappointment.

"Sir! Mr Scott." Lieutenant Marks straightened enough to almost break his spine, but his relief was evident. "We are running blind, sir. All sensory input has failed. Working to correct it."

"We have minimal input in engineering." He pushed past the man to access his board. "Must be an interruption in the main lines." Circuit diagrams lined themselves up in his head.

"That is what Ensign McDonald said, sir. She has gone to assess the situation."

Scott didn't answer him, his eyes tracking the consoles. They had power, but no information to report. He climbed underneath and checked the safeties. All functioning. As suspected, likely an interruption in the main lines.

"Mr Ma-" Something sparked to his right and suddenly the viewscreen lit up as visual sensors came online.

He blinked. "Holy mother of -…Collision alert!"

-o-o-o-

He missed the ladder.

Spock collided with the shaft wall and his fingers met nothing other than smooth bulkhead, black in his blindness. And gravity took over.

His stomach hit the roof of his mouth as their fall accelerated. His fingers groped in the dark, desperate to find the rungs he knew were there.

Air once again whispered in his ears, but for an entirely different reason. _Spock?_

_I'm sor-_

His fingers caught.

And he screamed as their plummet was halted suddenly, its kinetic energy absorbed by his arm, the joints separating, his shoulder slipping sharply out of its socket.

Spock forgot to breathe.

_Spock!_ The captain was sliding out of his grip. All he could do was edge the man closer to the invisible rungs. Agony danced pretty lights in the darkness. Automatically he started up the mantra of 'There is no pain' and his arm returned with an all too human repetition of 'You wanna bet?'

The darkness darkened.

"Sp-ck?!"

He blinked. "Captain?"

"You 'kay?" Kirk's voice was a rasping whisper.

A swallow. "I am well, Captain." As his feet touched the rungs below, he realised he no longer held Kirk in his arms. "Where are you?"

Something brushed his leg. "'Neath you, 'think. And y're lying."

True enough. 'There is no pain' was thoroughly denied again as he edged his damaged arm free of the ladder, his other three limbs taking his weight. It fell limp at his side, a throbbing mass of challenge to the Vulcan mind. He muttered in the dark. "A matter of perspective, Captain."

_Bullshit._

Succinct.

There was a clunk and a crank began to turn over. A sliver of light cut into the dark beneath him. Enough light to see Jim Kirk struggling with a manual override and opening a set of lift doors. His broken leg dangled free and at the sight of it, Spock was once again made aware of the trickle of pain that wasn't his in the back of his mind.

Kirk looked up at him, his mouth opening as if to say something, but nothing came out. He frowned, dried blood cracking on his brow and for a moment he wavered on the ladder. Spock instinctively tried to reach for him, but found he couldn't. "Captain?"

The light flickered.

Immediately the frown cleared and a familiar intensity returned to those dazed eyes. "We need to g't out 'f here."

_She's dying._

-o-o-o-


	6. Everything

Everything  
Part 6 of 'It went bang'  
By Gumnut  
19 Oct 2008 / 10 Apr 2009

"Thrusters!"

The ensign at the auxillary helm started, his eyes darting back to the controls. A moment that had Scott itching to grab the controls himself and the man responded. "No response, sir!"

For the love of-! A hand danced over the board while the other reached for his communicator. "Watson! Gi'me thruster control!" But he knew before she answered that the request was in vain. Thanks to McDonald, the consoles were now receiving information, but there was damned little they could do about the red lights boring into his retinas. "Manual control on thrusters. Send a team."

Her 'aye, sir' was almost lost on him as his fingers sought out sensors. Where there was a moon, there was likely a planet, and soon enough a patchy description flashed up on screen. They were caught primarily in the pull of the satellite body, but secondarily by the planet itself. The right manoeuvre and he should be able to turn the plummet into an orbit.

A quick assessment of the impulse drive and the readings came back as damaged as they had in engineering. But there was power there and he needed it. Calculations shunted through his brain.

The moon spun on the screen.

He shoved the ensign away from the helm, not trusting the calculations to anyone but himself. Watson called in a confirmation of minimum thruster control and, with a relayed order to port thrusters, Scott fired up the impulse engines.

The room shook. There was a critical imbalance in the port side reactor for which he was unable to compensate. The air began to vibrate, the power unleashed at the trailing edge of the saucer echoing through the ship's frame. Port thrusters engaged and the ship's trajectory shifted. Scott edged the impulse engines into reverse, braking their forward velocity.

Over the communicator he could hear Watson directing the thruster crew to stabilise the ship in flight. His eyes barely left the impulse controls, watching that imbalance jump around and praying to all that was holy to keep them stable long enough to complete the manoeuvre.

The moon slid sideways on the screen, eventually its dark cratered surface replaced by starlight. He let himself take a breath.

"Orbital insertion." His teeth gritted as he eased the impulse engines into forward thrust.

The Enterprise stumbled towards orbital velocity and the room began to roar. "Hold t'gether." The words hissed between his teeth.

The roar became concussive as the port impulse reactor redlined and the safeties failed to engage. "Shut it down!" He hit the kill switches.

Too late.

-o-o-o-

McCoy swore as the sickbay tipped on its side and he was thrown hard against the bed behind him. For a moment he thought he was going to be thrown over it, the poor patient in it crushed beneath him and the nurse who landed on him. Instruments clattered across the floor, the lights flickered and someone screamed.

He struggled back to the patient he had been attending only to find that moment of distraction had been enough for him to lose the fight for his life. Goddamnit.

The artificial gravity wavered and washed about him and he staggered, desperate to keep on his feet and onto the next patient.

There was another crash as another emergency lamp hit the floor and flickered out. For Christ's sake. The floor rolled again and this time McCoy found himself flat on his face, stars dancing before his eyes. He lay there a moment, dazed, staring at a splatter of red, but a hand grabbed him and urged him up onto his feet. Christine caught his eyes for the barest of moments. "Are you alright, Doctor?"

He didn't have time for sarcasm so just nodded before beckoning the next patient to be brought over. The ship steadied finally, though the floor continued to tremble slightly, the sound of groaning metal a counterpoint.

This could be it. This could be death. But McCoy had no time for sarcasm and even less to worry about his own fate. The sterile field snapped into place around another injured crewman and the doctor knew without looking at his instruments that the man's leg would need to be amputated.

He worked on automatic.

"Doctor McCoy!" Severing the last nerve, he looked up. Chekov stood in the doorway, a limp Uhura in his arms. The doctor pressed his lips together and pointed in the direction of the next room. "Triage." He was relieved to see a nurse run in to assist.

Someone burst into tears.

He finished the leg and moved onto the next patient.

-o-o-o-

This time it was Kirk who caught Spock.

After the wall caught Kirk.

His broken leg screamed obscenities at him and the world spun in several directions. He tried to cry out, but his voice failed him again. A hoarse croak was his only protest.

"Captain?"

The deck was still sideways. _Fine._

Spock made no comment at the obvious lie.

The deck picked them up and threw them at the opposite wall and this time it was Spock who let out a groan. _Spock?_

The Vulcan ignored the question and struggled to get the both of them upright once again.

Kirk's mind was a little clearer and he dreaded to think what had caused that sudden lurch. Beneath the sole of his foot the deck was still vibrating. The ship's superstructure was groaning around them. It echoed the throb in his skull.

Spock half dragged him the length of the corridor and around the corner. And again something slapped them to the ground. What the - ?

"Gravity shelf, captain. Approximately two gravities."

Kirk didn't answer. He was too busy fighting a sudden nausea and the agony that was his leg. It was only his determination that had him again attempting to stand. His Vulcan crutch straightened and helped him up. A matter of steps and they burst into Auxillary Control, stumbling slightly off the other side of the shelf.

"R-" _eport!_ Spock's arm tightened around him.

The Vulcan's voice was calm. "Report!"

Every eye in the room looked up and pinned them to the bulkhead behind. But only for a moment, then each and everyone of them returned to what they were doing. All but Scotty, who appeared at his elbow, pale faced and bleeding from a cut on his forehead. "Captain, it is good to see you."

A planet surface glided past on the viewscreen.

Kirk opened his mouth to respond, but Spock cut in. "The feeling is mutual, Mr Scott. Ship's status."

Scott's voice was hollow. "A low, but stable orbit around an M-class planet. We have yet to ascertain our exact location. However, that is the least of our worries at the moment."

Kirk swallowed, his eyes widening. _What do you mean?_

Eyebrows drawn, Spock again voiced what he could not. "Clarify."

"No warp drive, no impulse power. That last lurch was the reactor tearing a hole in the impulse deck along with a good piece of the hull. I've sent emergency crews to the site. There are injured people down there." He paused for a moment as if to grab a breath. There were injured people everywhere. "With the engines went our power reserves. With no power, the Enterprise canna support us for very long. I've sent some people down to check our atmosphere reserves."

Kirk urged Spock to help him over to the command chair in the centre of the room and, sitting on the very edge of the seat, touched a control on its armrest. He was both unsurprised and horrified when nothing happened.

"I'm sorry, captain. What little emergency power we have, I have shunted to life support."

_How long?_ The question hung in Kirk's throat.

"Estimated time?"

"A matter of days." The engineer spoke as if he had taken a mortal wound himself. "She's dead, sir. She's given everything she had."

-o-o-o-


	7. Permission

Permission  
Part 7 of 'It went bang'  
By Gumnut  
26 Apr/20 May 2009

It wasn't quite brown in the dark light, more of a black that rippled with the shiver of unstable gravity. He stared at it waiting for the inevitable cut in power that would see the liquid float up out of the glass.

It didn't come. Not for this moment in time.

McCoy reached out for the glass but didn't drink. He couldn't afford it, no matter how much he craved it. So he fingered the glass and watched the brandy shiver.

For now it was quiet. A lull after the storm. It wouldn't last long, but he had to savour it while it lasted. He would need the energy later.

Sleep would be the most logical course, but it was out of the question. Too many faces. Too many names. Four hundred and thirty souls under his care and he had lost one hundred and thirteen.

He closed his eyes.

His sickbay had become little more than a cut throat triage centre. It was all well and good to have the technology he had at his disposal, but time...time ate at his chances. They had been overwhelmed. So many had been lost simply because they hadn't had the resources. Or the power.

He swallowed, his vision blurring. He had experience, he had seen war, seen the mess of emergency medical aid, seen friends die, unable to save them. But not like this. Not so many. Not so many familiar faces.

A tear tracked its way down his cheek. He wiped it away irritably. This was a time for stone cold professionalism, time to take a leaf out of Spock's book, god forbid it.

The sight of the bedraggled Vulcan dragging a disabled Kirk through the doors to sickbay had been the highlight of the day. A spark of hope in all the despair. He hadn't heard about the main bridge until Chekov had demanded his attention for the two seconds he couldn't spare. The bridge was gone. Sulu, god, Sulu was gone. Chekov's voice had broken at that. The Captain and Mr Spock's location was unknown.

McCoy had acknowledged the words and turned back to his work. Chekov had disappeared through those god damned doors. McCoy had his work, but then some time later his two friends had appeared, a little worse for wear, but alive.

He didn't hug them, he didn't have the time. He swallowed his heart and grabbed a Vulcan sleeve before he could leave. "Goddamnit, Spock, your arm is obviously out of its socket. At least let me strap it."

"Doctor, time is of the essence."

He glared at the man. "Give me some credit, Spock. Let me strap the damn thing before you turn into another injury I can't repair."

The Vulcan had conceded then, his eyes rarely leaving those of the captain.

Kirk had a badly bruised larnyx, the swelling currently interfering with his ability to speak, and, if left untreated, likely to interfere with his breathing in the near future. McCoy gave him an anti-inflammatory and orders to curb speaking as much as possible. The broken leg was fortunately something he could easily fix with the wave of a boneknitter and a subdermal laser treatment managed the surrounding tissue damage.

The concussion required sleep the captain had no time to take. McCoy was no fool. He could order Kirk to sleep, but he would be disobeyed. The captain and his first officer were needed. So he patched them up as quickly as he could, handed Kirk a cane and sent them on their way.

They were alive.

Hope wasn't dead yet.

-o-o-o-

Kirk bit back the urge to scream in frustration. Smoke burned his eyes and clawed at his already aching throat as Scotty raised his voice above the din of fire suppressant jets. Something about a failure in the automatic system. He reached out to halt the man's tirade by grabbing his shoulder. He couldn't understand and he couldn't speak to say so.

Scott stopped. His face was pale, almost bloodless except for his eyes, red ringed and bloodshot as if he had been crying.

Kirk had no doubt he had.

Opening his mouth to try and communicate, the captain caught a breath at the wrong moment and his words were swept away by a coughing seizure that sent him to his knees. Spots danced in front of his eyes as he desperately tried to draw in breath.

Arms grabbed him under his armpits and he was hauled, struggling weakly, away from the din, away from the smoke, to a place where he could hear himself coughing and struggling to breathe.

"Jim." Cool, calm tone. Familiar voice. Through spasm induced tears, a blurry Spock slowly came into focus. Kirk's lungs heaved, drawing in cleaner air. There was still the faint tinge of smoke, no part of the ship escaped that, but he could breathe.

He was kneeling hunched over on the floor of an empty briefing room. Spock was kneeling with him, his blue tunic smudged with soot, his hands leaving black smudges in their wake. "You can not continue in this manner."

Blinking furiously, Kirk struggled to get to his feet. "I-ll conti-inue in an-ny-" And the spasm took him again, shaking him to dizziness as warm hands held him upright.

"Doctor McCoy advised rest."

_I don't have any damned time to rest!_ The words weren't said, but they were heard, and Kirk fired them at Spock with a fury born of desperation. "I have t-to be thhere." His voice was painfully hoarse despite his vehemence.

"I can-"

"Me! It has to be m-me!" And Kirk pulled away, standing on his own two feet. A brief hesitation before he bent over to collect his cane off the floor, and he straightened. Another cough struggled to surface, but he squashed it, swallowing.

He had given the order. All non-essential personnel were on their way down to the planet surface. A site had been located for a temporary base and the never before used emergency housing and utilities were now under construction. Chekov was planetside with security and housekeeping co-ordinating the effort.

McCoy had recommended the captain join them.

But this was still his ship, and his crew, and he belonged here, saving what he could.

He flexed the fingers of his hands, four curling around the hook of the cane, as he stared at his battered first officer. Spock had a smudge of black under one eye that had been smeared across his nose. The shoulder that had first been strapped now was anything but and if Kirk hadn't known any better, he would not have known it had ever been injured.

Pot meet kettle.

"I need to be here."

Spock glanced at the floor for a split second before returning his calm gaze back to the captain. "I know." The silence in the room mocked the noise he knew existed outside that door. "As do I."

A breath struggled down Kirk's throat as he drew it in to speak, but before he could voice anything, Spock continued. "You are injured, I am not. It is logical that you allow me to provide you with assistance." His shoulders knotted up, and again Kirk opened his mouth to respond.

And again he was interrupted, but this time no-one spoke. _Let me help._

Kirk stared at his first officer, caught between memory and the unshielded emotion that accompanied the communication.

The port pylon was still burning.

His head dropped just slightly. Permission perhaps? He wasn't really sure himself. The telepathy that had flared up between them had not dissipated as it had before. There was now something thing there that allowed...a sharing. He hadn't had time to consider the ramifications or his own thoughts on the matter. He hadn't had time for anything.

The faint smell of smoke still taunted him.

"Yess, Mr S-spock." He turned, walking out of the room, and back into chaos. Not looking back, not wanting to think about the possibilities. Simply returning to the corpse of his dead ship and the attempt to prevent its cremation.

-o-o-o-


	8. Survivors

Survivors  
Part 8 of 'It went bang'  
By Gumnut  
28 May/4 July 2009

They say space is silent, that no-one can hear you scream.

They lie.

There is never silence in space unless there is immediate death. There was always the sound of life support, of mobility, and, far too often, those screams he wasn't supposed to be able to hear.

Even in his dreams the desperate calls for help, the pain and the fear could fully out perform the thrum of the Enterprise's engines.

But now there was a hush in the cabin and it seemed to eat at the pulse of the shuttle's machinery and bring that true silence as they rose above the shuttlecraft doors and stared down at what had been done to their beautiful ship.

No longer did her graceful nacelles arc like wings. The starboard nacelle, burnt black in places, bore the scars of plasma burn. No warming light escaped the frozen bussard collector. It no longer spun. There was no movement at all. Not even the frantic energy of repair crews.

And as his eyes drifted to port he knew what he would see. The other nacelle was gone. All that remained of her wing was the torn pylon, looking like no more than the remains of an amputated limb.

They had finally supressed the fire, a last ditch effort as they resorted to exposing the entire section to space. As the shuttle coasted over the surface, open vents could be clearly seen, along with the remains of the ventral bulkhead Kirk had ordered destroyed. A great chunk of the Enterprise's skin had been vapourised to expose her insides and dampen the fire that threatened her soul.

Spock, standing next to him, shifted from one foot to the other. Scott, at the controls of the shuttle said nothing. The engineer had said very little for quite some time.

As they glided along the spine of the ship, the damage, already catalogued by the shuttlecraft's sensory systems, etched itself into his retinas. The impulse deck came into view and again the left side of the ship tore at him, the black remains of the port impulse reactor scarring and pitting the saucer section in a fan of destruction. Here, too, the bare deck was visible, another chunk of bulkhead taken by the explosion. A lost chair hovered in synchronous orbit.

But it was the sight of the bridge that ripped his heart out, forcing a painful sound up his throat and straight out through his tightly held command facade.

It was as if a giant hand had reached out and swiped the surface of the saucer section from port to starboard. The skin of the ship was buckled in a trail of damage that hit its climax at her centre. The upper sensory array and its superstructure had been torn off and the bridge laid out to space.

Time stopped as he stared down at where his command chair used to be.

"Mr Scott, please continue." Spock's voice broke the chill and Scott straightened in his seat, the shuttlecraft suddenly veering off to starboard and down.

Something undefined touched Kirk's mind and he blinked. Swallowing, he forced himself to straighten.

As the shuttlecraft dipped below the rim of the primary hull, the system's star glared at them from behind the planet below. It lit the ship up in wounded silhouette.

For a moment the image blurred and again Kirk had to force himself under control, blinking..

"It appears that the port side of the ship bore the brunt of the nova." Spock's voice leeched calm into the atmosphere.

"Yes." His mind fogged for a moment until a sudden anger at his own undisciplined reaction forced it clear. "B-but why?" A tortured larnyx provided more emphasis than he ever could.

"Unknown. The ship should have been destroyed by such a force. I have yet to find a satisfactory explanation for our condition."

The word 'lucky' didn't seem to quite fit the situation.

As they neared the lower sensor array in the centre of the bottom half of the primary hull, it became clear that it had been spared the majority of the damage. The deflector dish was still in one piece though canted distinctly towards starboard.

"She held together the best she could." The words were ever so quiet.

Kirk reached out a hand and rested it on Scott's shoulder. The muscle beneath the red fabric of the chief engineer's uniform was knotted stiff and trembling just slightly. "Th-that she did, Sc-otty." He forced the words through painful vocal chords. His fingers squeezed gently.

The shuttlecraft swooped down under the belly of the Enterprise, its sensors sweeping where the poor ship's could no longer reach. Even then Kirk's eyes caught sight of it before they did.

A pair of legs, barely visible up against the bulk of the ship, bobbed gently against the starboard pylon.

"Oh g-god." Kirk froze, emotion bubbling to the surface as a gold tunic appeared at the top of those legs.

He heard Spock move, he heard him speak into his communicator, but it took the sparkle of transporter energy out in the dark of space to snap him out of it. For the first time since they had started out here, he turned to look at his first officer. And found Spock's stoicism to be as transparent as his own.

"I-I think-k we've se-en enough."

There was no disagreement.

-o-o-o-

McCoy hacked up a cough and was surprised not to find half his lung on the floor in front of him. "Damn dust!" He snorted and reached for a cloth as the cough built into a sneeze designed to coat the inside of his skull with mucus. "Goddamnit!"

"Doctor?" Chris Chapel, looking a little worse for their recent wear, stuck her head in the door. "Are you okay?"

"Just fine and dandy, Nurse. Nothing that getting off this god forsaken planet couldn't fix."

A flicker of a frown crossed her features before she disappeared just as fast as she had appeared in the first place. He stared at the door for a second before turning back to setting up the last of the essentials for the clinic.

It had all come together rather well. Almost a textbook deployment of resources. Intensive care had been first along with its triple redundancy power supply, followed by surgery, medical housing and the clinic itself. McCoy now found himself head of a small hospital in the middle of a village of survivors.

A village coated in dust.

Transferring his patients down here had proved somewhat of a challenge. Power was a finite resource and the transporters confined to essential duty only. The Enterprise's two shuttlecraft had been doing overtime. It had become a balance between patient health and power consumption, but they were all down safe, all but a few on the slow road to recovery.

Uhura wasn't one of them.

McCoy bit his lip and forced himself not to look in on her for the fiftieth time this hour. Head injury. He had repaired the damage and relieved the pressure on her brain, but she had slipped into a coma. She should have woken up by now.

She had not.

Pushing the worry to one side he lifted a box of medical supplies and trundled it into the next room.

And sneezed again.

"Goddamnit to hell!" He caught the box before it could topple from his grasp and settled it as gently as possible before wrestling with the spasm.

"Doctor, are you okay?"

The sneeze sputtered into a cough that brought tears to his eyes. Must be damned allergic to something on this god forsaken ball of rock. He looked up to see a dark-haired crewman in a gold shirt standing in the doorway. The image swam as he blinked away moisture. A frown,before his eyes widened, his cough forgotten.

"Sulu?!"

-o-o-o-


	9. Settlement

Settlement  
Part 9 of 'It went bang'  
By Gumnut  
11 Sep 2009/Apr 2010

"Mr Sulu, where have you been?"

"Sir?"

Kirk frowned. His voice may be raspy, but the words had been clear. "Where have you been?"

The look of bewilderment on the Lieutenant's face echoed the confusion Kirk felt. "With emergency teams, sir. Ferrying mostly. I came down with the last batch of medical supplies and was checking with Doctor McCoy to confirm that they were all accounted for." He paused a moment and when neither Kirk or Spock interrrupted, he asked, "Why?"

Cane leaving trails in the dust, Kirk took a step to his right, his eyes not leaving the young man. "Mr Sulu, you have been an assumed casualty since you disappeared off the bridge."

"Disappeared off the bridge?" The confusion was suddenly replaced by realisation. Kirk's frown only deepened. "I wasn't on the bridge when the sun exploded."

"Yes, you were."

"No, sir, I wasn't."

"Lieutenant, are you calling me a l-liar?"

"Er, no, sir. I....um...I was in the head, sir."

"You went to the toilet? In the middle of a crisis?"

"It wasn't a crisis when I left, sir."

Kirk attempted to think back, but his memory was imperfect. "Mr Spock, can you verify Sulu's claim?"

When an immediate answer wasn't forthcoming, Kirk turned to his first officer. "Spock?"

The Vulcan blinked. "Yes."

Kirk turned, his feet stirring up aggravated dust. "And you just haven't mentioned it?"

"No, sir." Cool, calm and dark eyes revealed nothing, but something flickered at the back of Kirk's mind. He poked at it, but it chose only to tantalise.

Turning back to Sulu, his order was short and curt. "Report to Doctor McCoy for a complete medical workup. Spock, verify his story. I want details. Be damned if I'm taking anything for granted on this god forsaken rock. Happy to have you back, Mr Sulu, but I'll be happier when I have a few more questions answered." Spinning on his heel, he left the shelter in search of his office where he could cough himself to death in private.

-o-o-o-

Sulu's story was easily verified. Several crewmen had been with him on shuttle trips. One even claimed to have been saved by the Lieutenant while aboard ship. Kirk grunted when the news was delivered to him. Happy to have the man alive and well, but annoyed that a crewman could so easily be forgotten. Then he remembered the body found outside the ship. He ran a hand through his hair, tossing aside McCoy's medical report, and closing his eyes for one blessed moment.

He had a hut all to himself. Kirk had protested, supplies were at a minimum, but to be honest, he needed the space and the privacy. His command crew agreed.

Outside the door he could hear the bustle of the temporary town as his remaining three hundred and fifteen crew members settled in for the long haul. They were holding up well. There was shock and grief, but this was the crew of the Enterprise. They had been in worse situations. Few, but there was certainly worse. Enough to make anyone question their decision to join Starfleet. But they were his crew and for the majority the question was left unasked.

It certainly was for him.

Shoving his chair backwards, he grabbed his walking stick. He suddenly felt the need to get out and do something...anything.

Streets of dust intersected between rocks, sparse vegetation and the survival huts. Splashes of red. blue and gold echoed around the buildings, boxes being carried to and fro, voices bouncing off recyclable fibreboard. Several crewmembers smiled tentatively at him as he passed, a few even saluted, a rare thing, but considering the situation, understandable.

His cane ground grit into stone.

As he passed through the outer boundary of the settlement, he passed through the security line. Despite possibly only guarding the refugees against weeds, Spock had ordered the line the moment the touchdown point had been decided. Kirk knew his first officer was uneasy. There were too many unanswered questions and coincidences in this whole scenario.

They should be dead.

Giotto, sporting a bandage on his head, waved him through the security check point once he had confirmed that he had his communicator and phaser. No doubt he would be logging the captain's position with the first officer.

That something writhed at the back of his mind again. That something he knew as Spock. He pushed it away.

The settlement lay on a plain with a clear line of sight in all directions for several hundred metres. To the designated west there was a large stand of spiny and straggly looking trees at the three hundred metre mark from where the ground began to rise into a low mountain range. It was the source of the water supply that made this location so ideal. A strong river draining west to east to the south.

The breeze urged him in the direction of the trees and he had no reason to disagree with it. His boots crunched as the dust became gravel.

His communicator beeped.

His shoulders slumped just a touch as he reached for it. "Yes, Mr S-Spock?"

There was a pause, his first officer no doubt wondering how he knew who was calling. "Captain, Doctor McCoy requests your presence."

Kirk frowned, his pace stalling in front of the first of the trees. "What's wrong?"

Another pause, followed by some muttering the speaker didn't quite pick up enough to be intelligible. "He claims that you did not attend your appointment today."

'Appointment', a euphemism for his daily shrink session. McCoy trying to poke around his head to make sure recent events hadn't broken anything serious. He sighed. "Bones, I'm fine. I'm going for a walk. Captain out." His communicator snapped shut before either of the officers could answer.

The gravel soon became rocks, the first of the mountains having scattered a portion of itself among the stunted trees. Rocks became boulders and soon he was out of sight of their encampment. He wasn't stupid, however, and only kept a single tree or boulder as an obstruction. He wasn't about to wander off alone on this god forsaken planet.

A step or two further and he found what he was looking for. A particularly large pile of rocks rose high enough to see over the stunted trees and down onto the plain. He found himself a perch and sat there looking at the emcampment from a distance.

It was a small town. Paths had become roads well pounded in only the few days they had been down here. It looked settled.

The thought gave him chills.

The nova that ate into warp space had also leaked into subspace leaving a mass of interference. Subspace communications were useless. An emergency bouy had been sent to the nearest starbase, but even with warp capability, it would be weeks before they could expect some assistance.

For the moment this dust bowl was home.

He refused to look up at the murky sky. Scotty was still up there, having done the essentials down here. The man was clinging to a hope Kirk shared but couldn't afford to pin their lives on.

Leaning back, the rock was cool under his fingers and felt no more alien than any chunk of Planet Earth. The breeze rattled the treetops and the needle sharp foliage hissed at him.

He flinched and a sudden sharp pain in his right hand sent him staggering off the boulder, his cane clattering to a rest amongst the trees below.

A four inch dart was impaled between his knuckles.

"Oww..." The world blurred and he fell.

-o-o-o-


End file.
